


don't touch the glass till the curtain calls

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Bellamort, Background Het, Death Eaters, F/F, Polyjuice Potion, Second War with Voldemort, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: Bellatrix, warning the new director of MLE that someone might impersonate her, finds out someone already does for a fee down Knockturn. Writen for Season of Kink, free space, for the kink sex work.
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Season of Kink





	don't touch the glass till the curtain calls

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Bellatrix casually throwing around derogatory language; questionable client behavior; references to Bellatrix having Voldemort's child.
> 
> Title from "Sugar" by Garbage, and thank you to heliantheae for alpha reading!

Bellatrix only found out about the brothel because it came up as a security concern.

It was the fall of 1997. The Ministry had succumbed at last a month ago, and the Dark Lord was satisfied with how the bureaucracy was proceeding.

Bellatrix mentally substituted 'apathetic towards' for 'satisfied with' in the meetings, kept a bright, enthusiastic face, and privately ranted at Lestrange. The politics, which she had always cared about more than the Dark Lord did, were happening precisely when she was up all night with a three month old infant. Lestrange, who was taking the whole situation with her having another man's child remarkably well considering, only pointed out Cissy would probably be happy to babysit if she objected to leave her daughter with an elf or nanny, and left before she threw something at him for a reasonable suggestion she didn't want.

She was still attending meetings, and of course she spoke to the Dark Lord regularly. With his earthly power consolidated he was now concerned about the security of the unearthly, that was, the Horcruxes. She convinced him that checking on them now would only risk leading his increasingly desperate enemies to a weakness they likely didn't know about, the diary Lucius had gotten destroyed being thoroughly atypical as an example.She did agree to suggest to the new Director of MLE that they had had a tip off someone might try to impersonate her, because it was one of the most reasonable ideas he'd had that summer.

Anyway it wasn't _that_ far fetched someone might break into her vault. A lot of people hated her.

Yaxley, upon hearing her concerns, frowned in a disquieting manner.

"What is it?" Bellatrix said, eyebrows arching. She had thought this was some paranoid notion of the Dark Lord's - not that she'd dare think it in his presence - and as far as she knew he'd had no actual evidence, but if there _was_ a plot...

"Nothing, madam," he said hastily, but he turned aside under her flat, displeased stare. "It's only a trivial matter, and I would hate to disturb you with it."

"Disturb me, Yaxley." Bellatrix planted both her hands on his desk and leaned forward. Then she drawled, "You know I _love_ to be disturbed."

Yaxley flushed amusingly. "It's nothing I was involved in, Black," he said, reverting to the address of one Death Eater to each other, to Bellatrix's private relief. "But you know men talk, especially young idiots."

"You're not about to scandalize _me_ ," Bellatrix said, mystified. "I promise I shan't go and kill anyone who doesn't deserve it. If it's a security concern I should know."

Yaxley looked as though he did not find her reassurances terribly reassuring, but he said, "You know about the whorehouses on Knockturn."

"I wasn't a sheltered child, no."

"You know some of them use Polyjuice?" Yaxley did not wait for a response, but finally got down to the point. "I've never patronized them myself - I like to know I'm not screwing an Auror plant if I'm going to hire a whore - but you've been a popular face for a long time. Most of them are just using any woman with black hair and gray eyes, and Merlin knows your family's produced enough bastards to supply them. But according to a couple people who've met you and should know, there's one place that has a very good likeness, good enough they think it's your hair. I don't know if it is, but it's probably close enough to fool anyone who only knows you by reputation."

"And she might take money to do something besides screwing, or she might sell the hair, or she might just have lax office security," Bellatrix said, and made a mental note not to let the Dark Lord find out about any of this. "Very well, tell me the brothel name and I'll look into it. Out of curiosity, _which_ people who should know said this?"

Yaxley looked like he did not particularly want to give the information up, but he wasn't a total fool. "Your brother-in-law," he said.

"Malfoy or Rabastan?" Bellatrix asked, and watched him go very still. "What, _both_?" she said in disbelief. "Fine, I won't complain. And yes, they certainly both know what I look like." And wouldn't have mistaken a Polyjuice impersonation of Andromeda for her, which had been her first guess. Well, Malfoy might with good quality black hair dye... "Anyone else?"

Yaxley was reticent but it didn't really matter. She at last got the name and left him to get back to suppressing the populace.

  
  


The Colombier was in better repair than most of the buildings on its street, a stately gray stone affair that had seen better days before Knockturn became what it was. A few sad gargoyles pantomimed whining and perked their ears at her for attention. Bellatrix patted the closest on the head as she approached; it wriggled enthusiastically against her hand until she let go.

She wore a deep hood, which was not unusual for brothel patrons, and walked swiftly but without real urgency. There were several brothels that made extensive use of Polyjuice - generally cheaply brewed - but this particular prostitute didn't work in one. The Colombier was a collective, or whatever you wanted to call it, a brothel staffed by a number of girls who rented bed space together. The Polyjuice specialist was or claimed to be a skilled actress and impersonator, which she certainly was if she'd go to the trouble of seeking out Bellatrix's hair.

"I'm booked with Miss Rose at two," Bellatrix said to the witch in the front, who would be an entirely respectable secretary if she wasn't wearing an old fashioned muggle corset with nothing over it on top.

Bellatrix did not remove her hood.The girl didn't ask. "Up the stairs, she's got a sitting room you can wait in if she's with the last customer," she said, and turned the page in her cheap romance novel.

Bellatrix went up the winding, rickety stairs. The sitting room turned out to be two armchairs and a coffee table with a vase of charmed flowers in the landing; across from them was a door with a classy bronze nameplate akin to what you might see in the Ministry except that the inscription was " _A Rose By Any Other Name_."

Cute. Shakespeare, but old enough to be respectable despite its muggle origins. There were wizards who claimed Shakespeare had secretly been one of them but Bellatrix really doubted it. She did feel the choice somewhat missed the context of the play. The noises coming from behind the door were rather graphic and - she checked her pocket watch - she still had about fifteen minutes, so she investigated the other door.

No noise, no lights, and a discreet detector spell showed no people inside. The security spells were elementary. Bellatrix disarmed them, charmed the lock and opened it to find Miss Rose's dressing room.

It was mostly what she would find in any whore's back room; vanity with mirror, makeup and jewels; an open chest of clothes of the night time sort, with a stained chemise flung over the lid, presumably discarded rapidly between customers. Mostly the jewels were paste and pebbles with charms tacked over although the work was done reasonably well, someone less adept at seeing magic would probably mistake the number on the vanity at the moment for genuine sapphire. She didn't see anywhere the woman could be storing Polyjuice ingredients, unless...

The wardrobe was rather densely enspelled. Bellatrix took her wand out of her sleeve and began to work.

This took her most of the remaining time; either Miss Rose was a dab hand with a wand when it came to preventing burglary or she'd shelled out quite a bit of money for the security. That did make Bellatrix feel somewhat better about the hair, depending on where it turned out she'd acquired it. She still absolutely was not going to tell the Dark Lord about any of this, of course, but with a realistic view of the risk...

Yes; inside the wardrobe was a small cauldron with a portable stove; a rack of already-made vials filled with murky, individual doses of Polyjuice; and the real prize, a glass-doored cabinet of much smaller, almost empty ones, each labeled in an immaculate script with a name, each containing one or more strands of hair.

" _Excuse_ me," a female voice said indignantly from behind her.

"Pardon me, Miss Rose." Bellatrix straightened, and turned so that she could see the girl's wand before she took down her hood. "I did make an appointment," she drawled.

Miss Rose went pale. She was a small, round woman, almost a foot shorter than Bellatrix, with a braid of dark auburn hair and large blue eyes. "Madam Lestrange," she said, and kept her chin up and her indignation on despite her obvious fear. "I take it you don't actually want to have sex with yourself."

Bellatrix immediately liked her.

"No. I'm afraid I'll be taking this." She opened up the cabinet and removed the vial with her name; a quick spell verified that the hair _was_ hers. "I'll pay you for the time, but I can't actually let you keep it. Where ever did you _get_ it?"

Miss Rose did not break down pleading, or answer the question, or even refuse to answer the question. She scratched at the base of her braid and looked thoughtful. "I take it you're my two o'clock? --You'd better come sit down, I've got the time now, apparently."

"Very well." Bellatrix perused the vials quickly, assuring herself there was nothing else she needed to confiscate, then shut the wardrobe and reactivated the security spells.

Miss Rose, seeing this, sighed. "I suppose keeping out a Death Eater was too much to ask."

"You'd manage eighty or ninety percent, but no, few security spells _would_ be entirely proof. Maybe hire someone who works in burnt runes or something, that would have taken long enough you'd have caught me."

"Should you be telling me that?" Miss Rose went past Bellatrix into the dressing room and took up a silk robe, tying it on over her lacy petticoats and bustier.

"I'm not going to fuck around unlocking it again." Bellatrix shrugged. "And honestly if I'd failed to break in and you came and made a fuss I'd just put you under the Imperius Curse. Or burn the house down. It's no problem for _me_ if you get better security."

"...Noted," Miss Rose said, gave Bellatrix a look which was simultaneously terrified and unimpressed, and turned to lead the way back into her entertaining room.

Bellatrix followed her with a certain amount of interest. It wasn't the sort of place a respectable pureblood woman like she had been normally went. "Is that pornographic wallpaper?" she asked, torn between admiration and disgust.

"Yes. What do you think?"

"The motion charms are making me a bit seasick," Bellatrix said, after a moment's consideration, "But it's certainly eye catching."

"Ah, well. I've heard that before," Miss Rose said, and snapped her fingers. The wallpaper obligingly darkened to a less nauseating, stationary pattern made of overlapping rose petals. "Tea?" she asked. "Or do you prefer coffee?"

"How long has that been sitting there?" Bellatrix asked dubiously. Stasis charms could only do so much.

Miss Rose shot an indignant look over her shoulder. Her eyes were set off nicely by the navy silk, Bellatrix thought inanely. "I'm not some cheap, galleon-a-blow job girl, I'm expensive and my customers get their money's worth. I vanish it after every appointment and rebrew."

"My apologies," Bellatrix said, steadily more amused. "Coffee, then." She decided that a discreet cleaning charm on the upholstery just in case would probably not encourage Miss Rose's cooperation and perched on the sofa, waiting for her to return. Miss Rose evidently drank tea, which made her more likely to be a mudblood herself, but the beauty of consorting with whores was that you didn't have to know about it and therefore care.

"You were telling me where you acquired my hair," Bellatrix said, prompting, as Miss Rose took a sip of her tea. She cast a wandless detection charm on the coffee to be sure it was undoctored before she drank, herself.

"I was. Is this going to get him killed?" Miss Rose said, regarding Bellatrix steadily. Bellatrix brushed her mind with Legilimency, not trying to invade her memories yet while she was cooperating, but just enough to know if she attempted to deceive. "Because I don't want to get him hurt. He was very kind and he tips well. Threw out a man who was giving Mourning Dove downstairs awful trouble."

...Bellatrix was not going to _need_ Legilimency, then. "It's Lestrange, isn't it," she said and took a drink, watching over the rim as Miss Rose's eyes went even rounder with shock. "It's alright, I'm hardly going to kill my husband. Ask him what the hell he was thinking, possibly--"

Definitely; she knew and didn't care about the ladies of the night, but sneaking her hair out and leaving it unprotected was something else. At least she didn't have to be concerned an Auror had saved it from prison or something.

"--But this is probably one of the better possible sources."

"You are remarkably unsurprised," Miss Rose said, recovering, "That your husband is hiring a fornicatrix to impersonate you."

Bellatrix shrugged. "Is that the polite term now? He's been in love with me for years, the poor man," she said. "Considering what he puts up with it would be spiteful to deny him catharsis... No matter how bad his taste in it is." You would think he'd have enough of dealing with the actual Bellatrix. "I suppose he wants you to be a version of me who's capable of returning it? You don't need to answer that, I don't really want to know." She set down the cup. "I'll speak to him about the hair. I don't care if he wants to keep using it, but he'd better watch you take it and not leave any extra."

"Very gracious of you," Miss Rose said, watching her dubiously. "And the other clients?"

"You can tell them you lost your source and find a lookalike the same as all the others." Miss Rose didn't look pleased. "I suppose your business model depends on being known for the real thing? If it's Lucius Malfoy you're worried will throw a fit I can put up a sign I've been here - something only Death Eaters will see - and he'll probably scamper in fear I'll come kill him if he crosses the threshold. Make him pay for the next hour in advance if you like."

Miss Rose muffled a laugh into her voluminous sleeve. "That should address the other concerns as well if they'll all see it."

Insisting on discretion even when the clients might attack her; a real professional. Bellatrix looked thoughtfully over her, from the sprigs of hair escaping the braid to the curve of her calf escaping the robe's slit. It was a solution she hadn't thought of before. With the Dark Lord out of his mind, and - others no longer accessible, things had been difficult of late. "Does being threatened put you off your game, then?"

"I haven't seen a client with my own face in years," Miss Rose said, but in the tones of someone thinking rather than rejecting.

"Consider it professional research," Bellatrix drawled. "It may even sell a good enough look alike." She set down the cup. "Is that agreeable to you?"

She hadn't been close to anyone outside the inner circle's power games in years, since, oh - since Sirius escaped Azkaban. She pushed that thought aside. It would be an illusion, of course, but it wasn't likely Bellatrix could let slip anything that the men already patronizing Miss Rose didn't risk.

"It must be," Miss Rose said, humor entering her voice, and unfastened her robe. She pulled it open to show round breasts half-encased in the bustier. "What would you like today, madam?"

**Author's Note:**

> The lingerie is different from conservative magical clothing in my other fics because it's not; they're wearing vintage looking muggle lingerie. 
> 
> "Colombier" in this case is the French term for dovecote.
> 
> Liked this? [Find it](https://slashmarks.tumblr.com/post/630556738284847105/dont-touch-the-glass-till-the-curtain-calls), and me, on tumblr!


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